


No Stranger Would it Be

by clandestineClairvoyant



Series: Blood On My Name [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Grief/Mourning, i just love to be sad i guess, i think about the younger hawke siblings alot, one good looking mage in particular, violence against mages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5061073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clandestineClairvoyant/pseuds/clandestineClairvoyant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver Hawke follows the news of his sister's death by two months. All the way back to Skyhold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Stranger Would it Be

“SO I hear the Champion's brother is here to visit.” Dorians says conversationally with his drink halfway to his lips, like he hadn’t been pondering the question all day.

The lad had been sighted down in the valley, and he supposed he should be about at he gates of Skyhold by now. A giddy errand girl had bothered to tell him, flushing nervously as Dorian took his usual delivery from Orlais, and his mail from the rookery. He expected Josephine would make a small to-do of it, maybe a nice funerary service for the family that hadn’t been there for the mass ceremony they'd had for the people they’d lost at Adamant.

He also expected Varric to be happy. The more of the dwarves old friends there were around, the more he seemed to brighten. A small elven girl had visited not month earlier, and it had been a delightful period of tame conversation with pointed glares at Bull to behave himself, while various members of the Inner circle sipped tea and listened to Varric regale the girl with wildly inaccurate tales of heroism. Bull had kept a surprisingly tight lid on the ribald comments, although the girl had marveled loudly and repeatedly by how very _large_ he was, with such big horns, and didn’t his neck get tired holding them up all day? How did he sleep, she supposed he hung his head off the end of the bed, and perhaps he would like more tea? Dorian thought the mercenary was going to hurt himself trying not to laugh.

He was not expecting, however, the reaction this visit of Hawkes younger sibling garnered from Varric.

Dorian jumped when Varric choked loudly and spectacularly on his beer. The dwarf then _threw_ the tankard away from himself, and while it spun to a trembling stop on the tavern tabletop, he gave Dorian a look of undisguised horror.

He returned the look with one of wariness, his mouth full of alcohol that didn’t seem to want to go down under the scrutiny. It wasn't the first time, and he only succeeded in not choking by a large amount of effort on his part.

“He’s _what_.”

Dorian swallowed and grimaced. “At the gates of Skyhold by now I’d expect- Why? Did you not ask him to visit? He must have… _Heard_ , by now about his sister.”

Judging by Varric's increasingly closed off gaze, this was news to him; If not newer to him than it was to Dorian.

He still remembered the sinking feeling he’d gotten, watching as Inquisitor Lavellan came stumbling from the emerald glow of the rift like an avenging Andraste herself, her mouth twisted into a furious snarl as if she could reel the Champion in behind her by sheer force of her fury alone.  
  Her short red hair had been slicked down with sweat and the viscera from some unnamed enemy, clothes singed and faintly smoking and Dorian had actually _hung back_ at the sight. She seemed unapproachable in that moment, a strange creature wearing the face of one of his closest friends. Some spirit of righteousness that had simply taken her face as well as her place in the mortal world, and struck all of the wardens in the courtyard with the sudden desire to kneel.

And kneel they had.

He'd kept standing, waiting for everyone else to follow behind her, because surely this creature had swept them all back with her safely. Surely she had not _failed._

But Solas had followed behind her, and then Stroud, and lastly Cassandra and Varric. And while the storyteller had turned away, not even taking in the victorious battlefield or the limping injured behind him, Lavellan had shut the rift.

Varric had disappeared for a week.

It was a victory for the Inquisition. Not that you’d know it from the solemn march back home. Or from the way the Inquisitor dealt with the Magister that caused it all.

But apparently it wasn't quite over.

“Andraste’s _tits_.” The dwarf finally settled on, mouth thinning. Varric heaved himself up and threw some coins on the table without looking, waving over Flissa to collect it before some enterprising drunk soldier beat her to it, and Bull had to twist their head off for her. Dorian started finishing his drink with greater speed, sensing that perhaps something dramatic was about to happen and the Magisterium could go hang itself if he didn’t want a front row seat.

“Bull! Need you!” Varric snapped as he jerked his coat on, and to the mercenaries credit he didn’t even hesitate. The Chargers had been carousing with their normal energetic vigor, trying to entice half of the tavern into a competitive qunlat fighting ballad, that involved half of a tavern singing about the other half’s mothers, until they were bullied into participating as well. Dorian, who had a passing grasp of qunlat, thought it was rather dirtier than he remembered.

Bull’s eyes caught Varric’s upraised hand and he drained his drink without removing it from his mouth for affirmation, simply raising one finger to the dwarf while his throat bobbed. He finished about the same time as Dorian, and wiped the remainder from his grizzled chin with a loud belch. _Charming._ He unfolded himself like a mountain after placing the tankard on the table as neatly as an Orlesian handmaiden, the creak of his leg brace audible over the brief unsure murmuring of the tavern.

“Sure. What’re we doing?”

Dorian was beginning to be concerned. He’d never seen Varric look quite so serious outside of red lyrium, or Cassandra advancing around a table. He threw his own coins down, and wrapped his cloak around himself so he could jog to catch up with his friend who was already halfway across the tavern and pushing soldiers out of his way somewhere around their knees, just to to move faster.

 

“Stopping a murder.”

 

#####

 

Dorian came into the grand hall right behind Varric, and from his position in the wake of the main event so to speak, he had a clear line of sight from the doors to the throne where the crowd had parted to allow their honorable guest to approach.

Unfortunate, since said honored guest was currently standing over their prostrate Inquisitor with his fist covered in blood, and a look of cold fury on his face.

 

He looked like Hawke, Dorian thought, as the soldiers at the edge of the hall erupted into motion. His chin was larger, nose broken in a few places, and his eyes were a very steely blue rather than the interesting amber gold of some bird of prey as Hawkes had been. (Ironically.) But they were no less a hunting gaze, with that emotion of barely contained violence lurking in their depths, and the focus that made the pupils slow to expand, and permanently fixed in an expression of wide eyed disdain.

He was also broader than the lanky female mage had been, Dorian noted. He looked like he'd make two of his sister. Or three quarters of an Iron Bull. The young man turned to meet the first soldier, and with a motion of economical weight distribution that was rarely seen outside of bar-fights or circuses, picked the soldier up and threw him somewhere behind the throne. There was a crash, and Dorian saw a brazier tip and go rolling. Hawke took advantage of the reluctance of a few of the soldiers to advance after that, and turned to the Inquisitor again with a complete disregard of whoever was approaching.

 _'He's lucky we don't have archers on duty at the moment.'_ Dorian thought distantly, a little hysterically, at the same moment making a note to have a word with Cullen about that very fact. He was moving down the aisle, shoving aside a maid who had done nothing more offensive than be n his way with an armful of dirty crockery- It shattered, and he felt a brief surge of guilt. But the hall had never seemed longer, and the silly girl was simply _gawking._

Lavellan had rallied magnificently, and was halfway to her feet with her small sharp-toothed mouth twisted into a snarl when young Hawkes mailed foot met her face with another _crack_. Dorian was sure it was broken. Whether it was her nose or cheek was a toss of the coin, if it hadn’t been both.

Two more soldiers made it to him with shouts of rage on behalf of their Herald. One of them drew their sword, which seemed to prompt the younger Hawke into doing something besides swing his fists. 

He drew one of the largest blades Dorian had ever had the pleasure of seeing on someone’s back outside of one particular large qunari, and parried the first two blows to come from the soldiers with a speed that seemed unnatural given his size and the size of his weapon. To the Inquisitions credit, they were at a disadvantage in such small space with their numbers, and anyone with the reach of that sword had the upper hand against multiple enemies. Dorian knew this from witnessing Bull take out three dragonlings all at once, roaring with laughter- Then the silly sod had thrown Sera far enough to loose two arrows from her bow before alighting on a fence post. 

(Dorian was almost embarrassed _for_ them, after seeing how long they practiced to perfect that particular ridiculous bit of acrobatics.)

The young Hawke dispatched the next two soldiers handily, and it was when Dorian saw their blood splash onto the silver armor that he realized that the young man was mad. Completely insane.

Had to be.

_”Carver_ , stop! _Fuck_ -“ Varric, much farther a long than Dorian (impressively so, given the length of his legs), threw Bianca to the side as if worried he might accidentally use her in the scuffle. And although Dorian had never once in his entire acquaintance of the dwarf seen him engage in any form of physical violence besides the kind from behind a sight, he _threw_ himself at the larger human, grabbing onto his wrist and halting the motion of the blade enough to foul his next thrust that surely would have killed the soldiers.

“ _Get the sodding hell of of me Varric._ ” Hawke struggled against the dwarf while the two remaining soldiers moved to Pandora and attempted to help her to her feet, a few moving to helplessly hover, unsure of hitting one of the Inquisitor's Inner Circle, or worse, the Inquisitor herself. She brushed them off, taking a knee and wiping the blood from her face with one elegantly militaristic sleeve. Her nose was small, and some had been known to say, cute. it was completely off center a the moment, however, turned to the left and striping her face in gore from either nostril. She didn’t look particularly scared.

“I believe that’s quite enough.”

Dorian stepped forward as Varric was finally shaken off after a brief scuffle, and tossed the way of the first soldier, the young man left holding his wrist awkwardly as if Varric had managed to twist it. It didn’t stop him from hefting his sword one-handed, turning and swiping at Pandora before she had shaken off the pain off of her broken face. She dodged it light as a cat, and her hand grasped emptily on her back where she’d normally have an arrow waiting.

Dorian raised his staff as the Inquisitor darted to the left, out of the way, blood pattering on the floor like a warm summer rain. He cast out a horror spell with the smell of copper and a fine purple mist, watching the blood drain from Hawkes face as it took effect. He was quite proficient at them, and the lad went down to one knee, mouth opening in a silent gasp. The great gray bulwark that was Bull went by Dorian’s left side, the casting side, as he did so, weaponless and not looking overly concerned about the fact.

Hawke’s throat moved in a motion Dorian recognized as the swallowing against retching, and one gauntleted fist raised up towards him where he stood with his staff raised perhaps half the length down the hall, near one of the still standing braziers. His throat fluttered uncertainly, and he prepared a lightning spell right behind the first, uncertain as to what the reaction would be if he crisped the late Champion of Kirkwall's only remaining family member, besides the Hero of Ferelden, to a sooty smear.

Luckily, or unluckily, he didn't have to find out.

The smite that hit him was a physical blow.

 

Vivienne, who had been striding down from the door that led to her balcony,no doubt to see what all the commotion was about, brought her head back as if someone had held something very foul underneath her nose. Her complexion went ashen, Dorian had time to see in the brief moment after it had been cast, as it rippled the clothes of a few people standing dumbly in the way, and made one mage jerk their head to one side as if they'd been slapped.

Her hand went out to use a nearby servant as means of keeping herself on her feet, and that was without the smite even being aimed at her. Then it completed it’s journey across the hall, and Dorian had no more time to take note of the small things, because he was in a world of pain and confusion.

He felt the sensation of his magic being pulled out from underneath him as if he’d stepped onto snow covering a ledge; his heart jumping up into his throat and his stomach sinking down somewhere around his groin like a fist had been shoved into his gut. His head snapped back and he actually _fell_ , stumbling back and landing on one knee with his staff barely holding him up.

The sensation that he was left with after the initial sweep was as if someone had ripped his teeth out. A red and pulpy feeling of _missingness_ that was more terrifying than anything he’d ever experienced in Tevinter.

Maker’s _breath_ , no one had told him Hawke’s remaining sibling was a blight-forsaken _Templar._ And not one of the pretty ornamental Tevinter one’s either, that Dorian had used countless times as simple errand boys in his circle days of research and study. _This_ one was apparently a trained mage killer.

He caught sight of Bull flinching as the remains of the smite passed him, invisible but for the heat-haze of the air and a faint blue shimmer around the young mans hand.

And then the Inquisitor got up from the ground.

The light coming in from the windows was pink with the combined gold and red colored windows, stained in the Orlesian style and installed by that craftsman dwarf that spent most of his time holding court by the communal trestle tables. In the circle of one of it’s patterned panes she put her arms around his neck, gentle as a lovers embrace, with blood running down her face and one cheek broken, mouth swollen.

And tightened until the air was cut from the Templars lungs.

He immediately got the rest of the way to his feet after shaking off the remains of Dorian’s horror spell, and Dorian thought feverishly that it was lucky he hadn’t done so two second before, or their small leader would never have been able to reach. He then started twisting like an enraged bronto, sword still gripped in his hand, eyes blazing with a cold anger and trying to get at Lavellan who hung on with grim determination. She locked her arms around the opposite arms wrist in a gesture Dorian had seen take out behemoth red Templars in Emprise du Lion.  
She was quite spry for such a tiny thing, and Dorian had seen many a man lose money to an arm wrestling match.

But it wasn’t until Bull stepped forward and blocked the first blow of the sword with his bracered forearm, and knocked the blade aside that Dorian truly breathed in relief.

The qunari reached out and twisted the sword from Hawke’s fist with a practiced motion, and at Lavellan’s nod, grabbed his wrists and held them in a grip like- heh- iron.

Dorian heard the clatter of more armor as no doubt someone told the Commander someone was trying to murder his lady-love and he roused the rest of the army to come in and make a nuisance of themselves.

Meanwhile Dorian decided he would simply stay on the ground and regain his breath. He didn’t know what they fed them in Ferelden, but apparently it was the bones of their enemies and sword steel if the size of their templars was anything to go by.

Cullen drew to a halt at his side as he came into the hall, helping a reluctant Dorian to his feet with a strong pull. As he did, Dorian caught sight of his face. Pale, and drawn. He hadn’t seen that look since the Commander had been looking at Samson standing atop a mountain, with an army at his feet. The crimson light of his armor, and that of the misshapen crystals jutting from the the shoulders and malevolent looking belly, had cast a sullen red glow that turned the snow bloody as they'd caught a glimpse up the incline. Visible even at a distance, perhaps more so at night. 

It was a look as if someone had taken the knife of guilt that Cullen carried in his chest, and gave it yet another twist.

Bull brought the young man down to his knees, still struggling weakly with the Inquistor’s arms around his neck and Bull’s hands purpling his wrists. Dorian heard a sputtered expletive from his closing windpipe and grimaced. He gave one last shove, kicking out at Bull and thrusting his chest forward as if to break the collar of the Inquisitor through sheer force alone. But she hung on doggedly, feet leaving the ground even as Bull tightened his hold and stepped onto the warriors foot, blocking his knees and possibly hurting him even further than he already had been by Varric and Pandora’s stranglehold.

Dorian didn’t particularly want to get close, but since at Varric’s growled orders the soldiers had ceased their useless posturing, he bleakly decided that this was a matter for the Inner Circle and he better show willing. No matter if he felt like a sand cat trying to take the tail of a drasolisk in it’s teeth.

But when he drew closer wth Cullen at his side, the remainder of the men he’d brought with him at the entrance, he gathered up the same quiet solemnity that Bull, Varric and Lavellan had.

Because he saw the tears streaming down the younger Hawke feral expression, and realized this was simply the lashing out of someone who had lost the last family they had. At the only person they knew to blame.

 

Cullen stepped up past Dorian and put a hand on Bull’s shoulder, and at the qunari’s questioning look, murmured something that Dorian didn’t quite hear. The hall was already beginning to clear out, as it did whenever any of the Inquisition’s inhabitants and servants sensed some sort of important bit of violence was drawing to a close.

Bull let go of the man’s wrists, and Lavellan loosened her hold slightly. She followed the human down to the floor as he collapsed suddenly and without warning, all of the fight going out of him like a puppet with it’s strings cut. He gave a few noncommittal jerks, yanking at the Inquisitors arms, but barely looked at the Commander as he approached.

“You owe me fucking _blood_ , Maker damn it.” He grit out, although he made no more motion to murder Pandora. She didn’t even flinch in the face of his vitriol, simply shut her eyes briefly. “Son of a _whore._ ”

“Shh.” Cullen’s voice was hoarse, tight with emotion. “Come here, Knight-Corporal.” Cullen took a knee, and to Dorians astonishment grasped the younger man’s face, forcing him to look into his eyes. Hawke’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, hidden by his breastplate but evidenced by the fluttering beat Dorian could see in his throat and the rapid in and out of his breath through his teeth. He looked on the verge of something destructive, some emotion so strong that it made him want to look away from the scene. “She died like she wanted, you know this. _Hawke._ ”

Cullen’s face was earnest, and Dorian distantly recalled that he was the young mans former officer in Kirkwall. Apparently they’d been rather close. Something Varric had left out of the books, and never mentioned beyond a few vague comments to Cullen- That now made rather a lot of sense, in retrospect.

He also realized Cullen had never called the Champion anything but ‘Marian’. Apparently the surname had been reserved for someone with a little more relevance to his former life in Kirkwall.

“She didn’t have to _die_ at _all_ \- _Fuck._ ” Young Hawke leaned forward and rested his head against Cullen’s cloak, face hidden in the black fur, and shoulders shaking. Bull looked away, scratching his chin awkwardly and making eye contact with Dorian. The great oaf shrugged when Dorian mouthed a slow drawn out expletive at him.

Lavellan let the man go. Her hands remained on his shoulders in a parody of comfort, although Dorian suspected it was more so she could break his neck if he attempted to hurt Cullen. The young elf was like a small dragon, he sometimes fancied. Queenlike and wrathful and spitting fire. And although she could be gentle as a kitten where her friends were concernes, Dorian knew that Hawke had gotten his tithe. And he would get not a single blow more.

Though it was clear from the way he was sobbing into the commanders cloak that violence was growing farther and farther from things he was concerned with at the moment.

Varric came over from where he’d been getting rid of the soldiers, his eye blackened and a slight hitch in his step. If Cullen had looked guilty, then Varric looked as though he was facing the execution block.

“Well.” He had’t talked to any of them- Besides Lavellan. Not with the pain still so fresh. But Dorian knew that the pain of losing Hawke had almost _destroyed_ the dwarf, if it still wasn’t. He would have suspected their love of being soul bound entirely, if he hadn’t seen the two platonically in action together, and heard the Champion wax rhapsodic about her absent renegade apostate lover. “Junior.”

The young templar tensed, but didn’t look up, although his crying quieted suddenly, choked off with an ugly noise. Forcibly stifled. His fist clenched against his thigh with a creak of leather, and Cullen shut his eyes grimly over the top of an ink dark head.

Varric looked as if his heart was breaking all over again, and remained silent, instead turning to walk over to Bianca and scoop her up. His fingers played over the shaft and trigger guard briefly, before shouldering her onto his back, and walking away.

Something about it seemed almost holy, Dorian fancied, as he put his staff away and joined the Iron Bull by the Inquisitor’s left side on the first set of steps leading to the throne. The light coming in, colored with gold and floating with motes of dust. The young man in his Andrastian armor that was smashed and dinged all to the void, and stained a repulsive black where ichor splashed across it. Leaning against Cullen who seemed a figure penitent, with the pain of loss written across his face. More for the sake of the other Templar than anything to do with Hawke, although Dorian was sure any loss such as the one they’d taken stung like failure to the responsible martyr-like Commander.

And the Inquisitor with one hand resting on the silver-clad shoulder, her face pensive and regretful, completed the picture like Andraste in the flames of Maferath. Although Dorian knew if given the choice between the Champion and the more immediately tactically advantageous Stroud, she’d do it again. And said as much, through gritted teeth and flashing eyes to her questioning advisors.

 

She motioned to a servant who was pressed to the wall in terrified silence. Otherwise the hall was nothing but the echoes of retreating feet and uncertain murmuring. “Get some rooms set up in east watch tower.” She ordered, and the elf nodded rapidly, fleeing to do as he was bid before the large human started another fit of violence that maybe dragged the onlookers in as well.

Cullen helped the broken figure to his feet, closely followed by Bull who was looking uncomfortably introspective, and led by Lavellan. Dorian watched the strange trio leave, confident that if he was still feeling homicidal Cullen and Bull together should have enough vigor to put him on the ground again. It was like watching a funeral procession; younger Hawke pale and shocked looking, the anger so completely absent from his face it seemed to be a dream that it had ever been there in the first place. He didn’t even seem to be looking at where he was led, simply leaving his sword behind to be collected by whoever got to it first, and following the tug of Cullen’s arm at his shoulder like a complacent hound.

His eyes were very hollow.

Dorian sighed, taking in the stunned silence of the hall, and the furtive conversations with the guards going on in the corners. A few mistrustful glances were thrown the way of the door the party had left through. Dorian decided to head to Varric's quarters, and see if the dwarf needed a hand with all of the drinking he suspected was going to be happening in the next twenty four hours. Maker knows he wasn’t going to go through this funerary march _sober._

**Author's Note:**

> ##################  
>  
> 
> I'm trying something new by posting smaller works in a series, rather than trying to pump it all out at once.  
>  
> 
> I'm also trying to get better at formatting my stuff, but like everything I've written on AO3 it's a learning experience! If you notice anything wrong, don't be afraid to point it out.
> 
> I have a hastily written plot that I'm excited about so. Hang tight for more.


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